PITA Day

Well it's happened again. I've hit a roadblock - mainly because the Pentaho documentation does not cover BIRT integration very well.

I've been working for the better part of the day to get a chart to work in Pentaho, which shouldn't have been as hard as it seems to have become after today's festivities.

I tried using the report designer to make the chart, but it is no where near as intuitive as BIRT - therefore, I wanted to work with a BIRT chart...... which I have built in the BIRT Report Designer and have been trying to plug it into the Pentaho Design Studio with an .xaction . Of course, I end up with the following:

Error: BIRT.ERROR_0007 - error running report Task_Master\Reports\mold_metric_by_jobtype.rptdesign - org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.EngineException: The design file has error and can not be run. (org.pentaho.plugin.eclipsebirt.BIRTReportComponent)

Debug: Starting execute of Task_Master/Reports/mold_metric_by_jobtype.xaction (org.pentaho.core.solution.SolutionEngine)
Debug: Getting runtime context and data (org.pentaho.core.solution.SolutionEngine)
Debug: Loading action sequence definition file (org.pentaho.core.solution.SolutionEngine)
Debug: SolutionRepository.DEBUG_FILE_PATH - getFile path=C:\Documents and Settings\ameadows\Desktop\pentaho-demo\pentaho-solutions\Task_Master\Reports\mold_metric_by_jobtype.xaction (org.pentaho.repository.filebased.solution.SolutionRepository)
Debug: Adding variable source request to parameter DEPARTMENT (org.pentaho.repository.filebased.solution.SolutionRepository)
Debug: Adding default value of "1" to parameter DEPARTMENT (org.pentaho.repository.filebased.solution.SolutionRepository)
Debug: audit: instanceId=905acb35-36fc-11dc-8a80-d52e03632182, objectId=org.pentaho.core.runtime.RuntimeContext, messageType=action_sequence_start (org.pentaho.core.runtime.RuntimeContext)
Debug: SolutionRepository.DEBUG_FILE_PATH - getFile path=C:\Documents and Settings\ameadows\Desktop\pentaho-demo\pentaho-solutions (org.pentaho.repository.filebased.solution.SolutionRepository)
Error: BIRT.ERROR_0007 - error running report Task_Master\Reports\mold_metric_by_jobtype.rptdesign - org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.EngineException: The design file has error and can not be run. (org.pentaho.plugin.eclipsebirt.BIRTReportComponent)
Error: RuntimeContext.ERROR_0012 - ActionDefinition for BIRTReportComponent did not execute successfully (org.pentaho.core.runtime.RuntimeContext)
Error: SolutionEngine.ERROR_0007 - Action sequence execution failed (org.pentaho.core.solution.SolutionEngine)

I doubt anyone will read this, but with the way my luck is going I'll be working on getting this to work for a while. If anyone knows of a solution, please post to here. If I can find the solution, I will of course reply to this message with it. Thanks for the help if anyone does post!

Working Through Converting Pentaho

Well, while I am waiting for Pentaho's Kettle component to download, I figured I would post an update on my progress.

Last night, I taught two of our QA department's teams how to use Task Master. They received the program pretty well, but I was here until about 8:30 last night, heh.

Anywho, for the past two days I have been working diligently on converting the Pentaho PCI over from the in-memory hypersonic database over to MySQL 5. My main reasons for doing this are to:

a) Keep the RDDMS the same across the board.

b) Work directly with the security system - permitting me to use the current usernames and passwords already in the Task Master system, making it easier for everyone to get into the Pentaho Server.


This has been very slow going - mainly because all the answers and guides to help me get a grasp on how this is all done were in blogs and forums - which I happened to be Web Sensed out of until today.

Hopefully I'll be able to post more regularly now that I have access from a faster connection than home.

Anywho, Kettle has finished downloading - back to the conversion.

Pentaho Reporting

Well it's been an interesting week since I last posted. I've finally been able to run a basic parameter report pulling from the MySQL database. I then went one step further and developed a bursted report. Everyone that received it was actually excited that they could see their data - seeing that I have been working on the database's front end (PHP/HTML/XML) since last winter it's a pivotal moment. The plant's workers have been entering the system and plugging away the things that the various departments have wanted to keep track of and now it's starting to pay off in dividends.

My only real complaint is with the Pentaho Design Studio v. 1.5.4 . It didn't work right with the Email feature for the bursted report - I ended up going into the XML file and updating the report to have the correct parameters. Ironically enough, the Design Studio decided to recognize the bloody formatting after I did that modification and I was able to run/deploy the report with no other hinderances.....

Anywho, I also had some visitors from one of the local plants in the company. They were there for some training from corporate, but my boss decided to have me show off my work. So I'll be doing some work for them sooner or later - probably a version of Task Master. I'm certainly looking forward to working with them. It'll be another venue for me to work out of and try out some new code <3

Ah well, I'm going to try to get up here more often, as long as nothing else decides to hinder me from my usual routines.

Starting Anew

Well, I've decided to start a new blog, having tried and tapered off over the years with a few others. I'll start this blog off with a bit about myself.

I'm currently a Database Administrator for a global plastics organization. I build database systems from concept/design to finalization/deployment. Currently, I am building a plant-wide database system to keep track of maintenance on all of the plant's equipment. This has given rise to me finally being able to delve into the Business Intelligence scene.

I have been working for the past two weeks on deploying and developing a Pentaho server. After trying to manually deploying the software, I got a version working based off of the 1.5.4 PCI. Yesterday I was successful in setting up the server's SMTP settings and was able to get Pentaho to send emails to my plant's email system.

Anywho, I'm still working on manually deploying the server, but in the meantime I'll still work with the PCI.

If you have any interest in Business Intelligence, then feel free to comment, email, etc. Seeing that I'm just starting out in learning about BI, I would definitely appreciate any thoughts, advice, or comments.


I hope to continue to update this blog every few days/daily as I make progress with the server and with other database systems along with the current project.